SOTD by u/OnionMiasma

July 4, 2023 - April Showers Bring May Flowers

• Brush: Farvour Turncraft / AP Shave Co G5A 26mm #PREMIUMPLASTIC #SHD
• Razor: Edwin Jagger DE89 #TWINS
• Blade: Gillette Platinum (1)
• Lather: Southern Witchcrafts - Tres Matres - Soap
• Post Shave: Barrister and Mann - Petrichor - Splash
• Fragrance: Declaration Grooming - Albizia - EdT
• Music: Ying Yang Twinz - Whistle While you Twurk

Daily Write-Up
Twins, Basil. Twins… First of all, an objective look at these two razors..

On the left, the Merkur R89. On the right the Edwin Jagger DE89.

Clearly these must be fraternal twins. The family resemblance is clear, but they’re clearly not identical.

The EJ has some ornamentation on the baseplate, which makes it stand out against its brother. A little more beautiful, I could argue.

The EJ also has tighter knurling than the Muhle. Again, more attractive, though I think the deeper knurling on the Muhle makes it easier to hold when wet.

Weighing them, the heads weigh the same, but the EJ is a ¼ oz. heavier. I can commiserate with the EJ; I too am the fat sibling. The EJ has a slightly longer handle (that doesn’t quite fit in an Altoids tin for travel). So, much like me, the EJ is the tall sibling, the beautiful sibling, the aesthetically pleasing yet less useful sibling.

But while I can commiserate with the EJ, I just don’t like it. This razor is the sole source of all of my really bad shaving cuts. Something seems off with the head - I suspect the culprit is a set of threads that aren’t quite right and they sometimes keep the head from being fully screwed into the handle. I have really sliced myself with it multiple times. Odd, because this is reputationally a very mild shaver.

I took care to ensure it was fully screwed in today, and got a good, if unremarkable and bloodless shave from it. Once it’s fully engaged, it does seem to shave about like the Muhle. But as you can see from the pictures, my Muhle gets used. It’s my go-to travel razor. The DE just sits around (in my drawer) and does nothing. Again, I can relate.

But, in my experience, isn’t that how twins go? Usually you get one good and one evil twin. I know that was the case with my nephews… or at least was when they were teens. /u/Specialist-Quiet-833 please research and report back 18 years from now.

I took care to weigh out my soap. 21 grams before the shave, 19 grams after the shave. For a total of 2 grams of floral and petrichor-scented goodness. Precise measurements are important when you’re attempting to control for all variables in your shave.

I slowly incorporated 2 smitkens of water to build a fluffy lather in my bowl. A smitken, the newly recognized scientific measure of liquid volume, happens to be exactly the same volume as the cap from an Ice Mountain water bottle. Big Water strikes again. I had a total of 16 grams of slick, fluffy lather based on the weight of the bowl when empty.

Music Justification * I tried to come up with some twin-related music, this is all I could find. But, I quickly changed back to David Bowie, because the Ying Yang Twinz gave me cephalalgia, which is science for “a headache”.

Soap Theme Justification
* Description of the soap: A tribute to the classic horror franchise “Suspiria”. A floral accord on a petrichor base with citrus top notes. Though the citrus notes are there, this soap is all spring with the floral and petrichor taking over.

Post-Shave and Fragrance Relevance Notes
* For the aftershave and fragrance, I took specific components of the soap scent that I wanted to pull out and emphasize.

• The soap is a floral accord on a petrichor base with citrus top notes. I tend to gravitate towards citrus scents, so I specifically picked complementary scents that didn’t play to the citrus and instead pulled out the floral and petrichor components.

• Obviously the Barrister and Mann Petrichor after shave works on the latter piece - I find this to be a criminally underrated scent, but reading the discussions about it whenever it is used, it seems like it is a particularly polarizing scent. Will hit the note bang-on though – while my Northeastern friends like /u/loudmusicboy have had nothing but rain for the past two months, here in the midwest we’ve had a historic drought. That was finally broken a couple weeks ago, and I remember standing on the back steps of my house and breathing in the smell - it was EXACTLY as Will created. Interestingly, I think the soap and splash are crazy close to each other in how they smell.

• Albizia, one of my favorite Wetshaving scents, plays to the floral notes in the soap. Based on the description - it is intended to evoke the feeling of walking through a dewy meadow just as flowers are beginning to bloom - to me it smells like the bike trails near my hometown, especially in the month of May. The weather is just starting to get warm, and the scents that will be in full force in summer are just peeking their heads out and making themselves known. While I didn’t use the Albizia soap for the Lather Games, I’m glad I could slot in this EdT, because I think that while this scent in soap is really good, it shines in the EdT.

It’s interesting for me when this day comes around - Spring is the hardest day for me to slot in my calendar - because, as I commented at the end of the year last year, 3 of my top 10 scents are Spring scents (and actually… if I were to do this list again, I think Petrichor would end up on the list too). I have House of Mammoth slotted later this month for something else so the Alive soap won’t make an appearance on my Lather Games schedule, but if you haven’t gotten a chance to experience it, I highly recommend making your way to their website and picking up a sample.

**July 4, 2023 - April Showers Bring May Flowers**

* **Brush:** [Farvour Turncraft](https://www.etsy.com/shop/FarvourTurnCraft) / [AP Shave Co G5A 26mm](https://apshaveco.com/products/26mm-g5a-premium-synthetic-knot) #PREMIUMPLASTIC #SHD
* **Razor:** Edwin Jagger DE89 #TWINS
* **Blade:** Gillette Platinum (1)
* **Lather:** Southern Witchcrafts - Tres Matres - Soap
* **Post Shave:** Barrister and Mann - Petrichor - Splash
* **Fragrance:** Declaration Grooming - Albizia - EdT
* **Music:** Ying Yang Twinz - Whistle While you Twurk

**Daily Write-Up**
[Twins, Basil. Twins…](https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/1248b213-8688-40af-b4c9-3ed191fe1d56)
[First of all, an objective look at these two razors.](https://imgur.com/oVq4HxV).

On the left, the Merkur R89. On the right the Edwin Jagger DE89.

Clearly these must be fraternal twins. The family resemblance is clear, but they’re clearly not identical.

The EJ has some [ornamentation on the baseplate](https://imgur.com/iKd3E5X), which makes it stand out against its brother. A little more beautiful, I could argue.

The EJ also has tighter knurling than the Muhle. Again, more attractive, though I think the deeper knurling on the Muhle makes it easier to hold when wet.

Weighing them, the heads weigh the same, but the EJ is a ¼ oz. heavier. I can commiserate with the EJ; I too am the fat sibling. The EJ has a slightly longer handle (that doesn’t quite fit in an Altoids tin for travel). So, much like me, the EJ is the tall sibling, the beautiful sibling, the aesthetically pleasing yet less useful sibling.

But while I can commiserate with the EJ, I just don’t like it. This razor is the sole source of all of my really bad shaving cuts. Something seems off with the head - I suspect the culprit is a set of threads that aren’t quite right and they sometimes keep the head from being fully screwed into the handle. I have **really** sliced myself with it multiple times. Odd, because this is reputationally a very mild shaver.

I took care to ensure it was fully screwed in today, and got a good, if unremarkable and bloodless shave from it. Once it’s fully engaged, it does seem to shave about like the Muhle. But as you can see from the pictures, my Muhle gets used. It’s my go-to travel razor. The DE just sits around (in my drawer) and does nothing. Again, I can relate.

But, in my experience, isn’t that how twins go? Usually you get one good and one evil twin. I know that was the case with my nephews… or at least was when they were teens. /u/Specialist-Quiet-833 please research and report back 18 years from now.

I took care to weigh out my soap. [21 grams before the shave](https://imgur.com/kZxXhzC), [19 grams after the shave](https://imgur.com/NzU6NvR). For a total of 2 grams of floral and petrichor-scented goodness. Precise measurements are important when you’re attempting to control for all variables in your shave.

I slowly incorporated 2 smitkens of water to build a [fluffy lather in my bowl](https://imgur.com/bKJVDZg). A smitken, the newly recognized scientific measure of liquid volume, happens to be exactly the [same volume as the cap from an Ice Mountain water bottle](https://imgur.com/qfC1rP0). Big Water strikes again. I had a total of [16 grams of slick, fluffy lather](https://imgur.com/F3sfQ2M) based on the [weight of the bowl when empty](https://imgur.com/7UYP8E5).

**Music Justification**
* I tried to come up with some twin-related music, this is all I could find. But, I quickly changed back to David Bowie, because the Ying Yang Twinz gave me cephalalgia, which is science for “a headache”.

**Soap Theme Justification**
* [Description of the soap:](https://www.therazorcompany.com/products/southern-witchcrafts-shave-soap-tres-matres-vegan) A tribute to the classic horror franchise “Suspiria”. A floral accord on a petrichor base with citrus top notes. Though the citrus notes are there, this soap is all spring with the floral and petrichor taking over.

**Post-Shave and Fragrance Relevance Notes**
* For the aftershave and fragrance, I took specific components of the soap scent that I wanted to pull out and emphasize.

* The soap is a floral accord on a petrichor base with citrus top notes. I tend to gravitate towards citrus scents, so I specifically picked complementary scents that didn’t play to the citrus and instead pulled out the floral and petrichor components.

* Obviously the Barrister and Mann Petrichor after shave works on the latter piece - I find this to be a criminally underrated scent, but reading the discussions about it whenever it is used, it seems like it is a particularly polarizing scent. Will hit the note bang-on though – while my Northeastern friends like /u/loudmusicboy have had nothing but rain for the past two months, here in the midwest we’ve had a historic drought. That was finally broken a couple weeks ago, and I remember standing on the back steps of my house and breathing in the smell - it was EXACTLY as Will created. Interestingly, I think the soap and splash are crazy close to each other in how they smell.

* Albizia, one of my favorite Wetshaving scents, plays to the floral notes in the soap. Based on the description - it is intended to evoke the feeling of walking through a dewy meadow just as flowers are beginning to bloom - to me it smells like the bike trails near my hometown, especially in the month of May. The weather is just starting to get warm, and the scents that will be in full force in summer are just peeking their heads out and making themselves known. While I didn’t use the Albizia soap for the Lather Games, I’m glad I could slot in this EdT, because I think that while this scent in soap is really good, it shines in the EdT.

It’s interesting for me when this day comes around - Spring is the hardest day for me to slot in my calendar - because, as I commented at the end of the year [last year,](https://www.reddit.com/r/Wetshaving/comments/zmwjf6/comment/j0fcy0n/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) 3 of my top 10 scents are Spring scents (and actually… if I were to do this list again, I think Petrichor would end up on the list too). I have House of Mammoth slotted later this month for something else so the Alive soap won’t make an appearance on my Lather Games schedule, but if you haven’t gotten a chance to experience it, I highly recommend making your way to [their website](https://houseofmammoth.com/collections/alive) and picking up a sample.